[Drd]

I'm about to buy a new laptop.I've no experience of Vista,some of the reviews and some of the forum comments about it are not complimentary.It's still possible to have XP installed instead.Could those of you who have experience of both indicate which you would install on a laptop for general use (I don't play games on it).
Thanks
Ian

[booyaka]

dependant on the specs of the laptop i would still stick with XP. If it's a decent spec of laptop vista would be fine also.

it's horses for course but XP is still a bit more refined on the driver/software front.

[Drd]

I had one of these in mind,it seems reasonably future-proof,just cannot find any info on what warranty it comes with.

[avinitski]

i think you should buy it with Vista installed, give it a test drive of a month or so, if then you dont like it install XP.

you may like Vista, as you say you have no experience with it, dont just go off what others say.

[Marc]

looks quite nice, just make sure you get the core 2 duo version and not the celeron version, the performance difference will be quite massive.

Also Vista is absolutely fine for web surfing, music playing, movie playing etc, it just has issues playing games as well as XP did due to bad driver support for the graphics cards and sounds cards currently in existence. A lot of the early OS problems such as very slow file access over network have apparently been fixed by patches and you can turn off all the annoying "user access control" stuff which makes it unusable.

[Uridium]

Seems overpriced to me. Also have you used Eclipse before? my own experience of them found there service to be less than great.

"Usually in stock" on there website actually means....

we might have it or we might not, we'll take your cash anyway then ship it sometime in the next few months when we get round to it. In the meantime we won't let you know what's happening with your order and if you change your mind and want a refund you can spend a couple of hours on the phone on hold trying to speak to our CS bloke.

As for Vista or XP that's quite a tricky one; once you get used to Vista it's hard to go back to XP as it seems a bit "old" but most people don't give themselves longer enough to get used to Vista and write it off as rubbish.

I'd say Vista

[Drd]

The problem is,I don't have time to spend fighting with Vista if it's going to be a pain.I know my way around XP and it does everything I need,or at least I'm not aware of anything I need that it doesn't do,if you follow my logic.Just because something is new and improved doesn't mean we all need it.I am however open to advice,and, like 'ask the audience',if there is a big vote either way then I will definitely take it into account.If Vista is perceived by users to be worth the effort then I'll give it a try.

[avinitski]

Originally Posted by Marc

looks quite nice, just make sure you get the core 2 duo version and not the celeron version, the performance difference will be quite massive.

well spotted, if your getting the Celeron then i wouldnt go Vista.

also the advert doesnt actually say which processor you get? or the price difference between a Celeron and Core? unless i missed it?

[Uridium]

Originally Posted by Drd

The problem is,I don't have time to spend fighting with Vista if it's going to be a pain.I know my way around XP and it does everything I need,or at least I'm not aware of anything I need that it doesn't do,if you follow my logic.Just because something is new and improved doesn't mean we all need it.I am however open to advice,and, like 'ask the audience',if there is a big vote either way then I will definitely take it into account.If Vista is perceived by users to be worth the effort then I'll give it a try.

This is exactly what everyone said when XP came out

look at the price of this Dell in comparison
http://configure.euro.dell.com/dells...212&lid=122756

I'm not a huge Dell fan but would easily recommend this over the Eclipse machine

Edit: looks like the base price on the Eclipse machine rises to £715 when you select the C2D CPU. the Dell is about £30 but that is with a 250Gb HDU. and i know which one I'd rather have for service backup if i had troubles.......

[Drd]

Originally Posted by Uridium

Seems overpriced to me. Also have you used Eclipse before? my own experience of them found there service to be less than great.

Aaarrgh!I thought it seemed reasonably priced compared to the equivalent T7700 or it's nearest equivalent from Dell/Evesham/HP/Sony etc etc.I've no experience of eclipse,but every other IT company I've ever dealt with have been rubbish when it comes to customer service.I did e-mail Eclipse re their warranties last week,no reply yet which I must admit is less than impressive considering I'm a possible new customer!

[Razor]

I would go with vista. I have it running on both my pc's and wouldn't like to go back to xp.

[avinitski]

Originally Posted by Drd

I did e-mail Eclipse re their warranties last week,no reply yet which I must admit is less than impressive considering I'm a possible new customer!

this is a sure way to test companies these days, i do it myself, i email them about the product or delivery, i always do this, if i dont get a reply i dont order from them, if i get a prompt reply i buy!

how long ago did you email them?

they probably aint dodgy but if they cant be bothered to reply to a pre-sales query imagine if you need after sales support.

[Drd]

Got to do some work guys,thanks for the comments so far,back later.

[Ayub]

I have always found vista slow. I have 2 machines and have used vista and gone stright back to my gud ol sp2 xp.

"Better the devil you know"

[avinitski]

Originally Posted by Ayub

I have always found vista slow. I have 2 machines and have used vista and gone stright back to my gud ol sp2 xp.

"Better the devil you know"

did you have enough umph?

[Moosh]

My Vista experience:
Ever had one of those weeks?

A couple of months ago I uninstalled Vista and replaced it with XP Pro. I haven't looked back (or forward in Microsoft terminology)!

Cheers
Moosh

[Razor]

Originally Posted by Ayub

I have always found vista slow. I have 2 machines and have used vista and gone stright back to my gud ol sp2 xp.

"Better the devil you know"

My machines run vista really quickly. Boot up time is around 20 seconds. Vista needs new spec hardware for it to shine. No point in running it on a Pentium 3 with 256Mb of ram. I found a large performance boost when I upgraded to 4Gb of memory from 2Gb. I also haven't had any compatibility issues with vista and I use it for media, work, gaming, web surfing etc.

[Gammy leg]

Vista STINKS. Stay with XP until MS sort out ALL compatability probs which will be sometime never.

[Singh400]

For general use and to be installed on laptop I'd say Vista. The new power saving features will be handy. Not to mention 3rd party [mobility center] tiles coming out (see here and here)

Originally Posted by Gammy leg

Vista STINKS. Stay with XP until MS sort out ALL compatability probs which will be sometime never.

Wow, such a devastating argument, I'm convinced!

[dognosh]

Go Vista

Originally Posted by Marc

looks quite nice, just make sure you get the core 2 duo version and not the celeron version, the performance difference will be quite massive.

Also Vista is absolutely fine for web surfing, music playing, movie playing etc, it just has issues playing games as well as XP did due to bad driver support for the graphics cards and sounds cards currently in existence. A lot of the early OS problems such as very slow file access over network have apparently been fixed by patches and you can turn off all the annoying "user access control" stuff which makes it unusable.

1. Games, no problems here, and I play most of the new stuff
2. Slow file access, apparently there are still problems with network file access,so I doubt if it has been fixed(looking at posts by the SP1 beta testers and my friend who also is testing it)
3. User Access Control, why does everyone hate something that helps ? mine is on and never a hinderence to me ?

Are these your personal experiences or reading the net ?

[Uridium]

Originally Posted by Gammy leg

Vista STINKS. Stay with XP until MS sort out ALL compatability probs which will be sometime never.

Blimey your right......... I'll uninstall it now

[Sandy13]

I have recently changed my main PC, and bought a Laptop for the other half, both are running Vista, and so far, so good, I don't think I'll be going back to XP, of course, time will tell.

[Ayub]

Originally Posted by avinitski

did you have enough umph?

I had 1 gb ddr ram i would of thought that was ample.

[Marc]

Originally Posted by dognosh

Go Vista



1. Games, no problems here, and I play most of the new stuff
2. Slow file access, apparently there are still problems with network file access,so I doubt if it has been fixed(looking at posts by the SP1 beta testers and my friend who also is testing it)
3. User Access Control, why does everyone hate something that helps ? mine is on and never a hinderence to me ?

Are these your personal experiences or reading the net ?

i had vista home premium a while back and went back to XP mainly because of gaming issues but the UAC also annoyed the hell out of me (i'm an IT admin so i don't want to be babied every time i open Control Panel or Computer Management) and a friend who kept it a little longer said a patch had fixed the network problems for him. There were also problems with drivers for the Audigy that stopped my sub from working, but i managed to find a hacked version of the XP Audigy software which managed to get me round those issues.

If i hadn't wanted to play games i probably would have stuck with Vista longer as it is a nicer operating system, but getting 20fps instead of 90fps in Pro Evo 6 was the final straw. I haven't tried since the drivers improved but all you have to do is look on the guru3d.com forums to see all the remaining problems, and i don't want that hassle. I've still got my disc though and i'll put it back on again one day..

[Marc]

Originally Posted by Ayub

I had 1 gb ddr ram i would of thought that was ample.

vista needs 2gb to work well despite it's listed requirements...

[avinitski]

Originally Posted by Ayub

I had 1 gb ddr ram i would of thought that was ample.

not enough for Vista, and what cpu?

someone will probably post now saying an OS shouldnt need more than 1GB, whilst there may be a good argument in that if a user wants to run Vista properly it needs more than 1GB simple as.

[Razor]

Originally Posted by Ayub

I had 1 gb ddr ram i would of thought that was ample.

Not now days mate. 2gb is the minimum I would recomend.


Marc _ I have been using vista for my gaming since it was released. I havent had any issues at all with it. I can max out all my games (bar crysis which really needs next gen hardware to run on full settings). As for the UAC I disable mine as soon as I have installed vista, so no issues or annoying messages there. All in all I would never go back to xp, its just too basic looking and I find vista smoother, nice looking interface, more polite, more informative (lists issues, fixes and updates) and faster than xp. Most of the vista bad press is from the early builds or from people who try to run it on an old pc who's hardware isnt up to it. I really cant see the point in sticking with xp these days if someone was looking to buy a new system and was offered a free OS.

[wombar]

For the love of god don't buy from Eclipse!!! Their customer service is horrendous and you'd be better off flushing your money down the toilet. I ordered from them a few years ago (their service hasn't got any better trust me, there are complaints scattered around various forums I frequent) and 90% of my order was either faulty, broken or simply not there.

When I paid them a visit in person to return everything, they were rude and didn't even offer an apology. Needless to say I asked for a complete refund and will NEVER buy anything from them again.

You're far better off going with a well know company like HP, Dell or perhaps Scan (not sure if they do laptops actually). I'd recommend spec'ing up a laptop on Dells site and give them a call once you have the spec printed out in your hand. Haggle with 2-3 people over the phone asking for the best price they can give you.

I do this for friends/family and on average save £300-£400 off the website price. The trick is to ask for every conceivable extra (insurance, RAM upgrades etc) and then start asking for money off as well, be cheeky the worst they can say is no. They will want you CC details to send you a quote which is fine because they can't authorise the build process without a written email from you saying to go ahead. Play them off against each other and you WILL save £££'s. PM me if you want some more advice.

Oh, to address your orignal question, I'd say stick with XP if you do anything remotely unusual with your laptop. If you're just web surfing, watching movies and word processing go with Vista.

[avinitski]

Originally Posted by wombar

.....I'd say stick with XP if you do anything remotely unusual with your laptop. If you're just web surfing, watching movies and word processing go with Vista.

unusual like what?

[wombar]

Audio Recording/Mixing, using FTP programs (my program didn't work when I tried Vista last year), web development, installing web servers etc. Some programs will work and others won't, whilst many have now been fixed to work with Vista some haven't. I'm not saying that none of these things are possible on Vista, but some programs haven't been fully patched yet so do your research.

I had a lot of problems with incompatabilities when I tried Vista last year and it was usually the less mainstream programs that weren't compatible, though there were some real surprises like Norton Ghost (but this was literally just after Vista came out). Some specialist hardware didn't have Vista drivers (e.g. semi-pro audio interfaces) either which was a bit of a pain. I have no problem with Vista, in fact I put it on my brothers laptop and it works fine for him, but there are some people who would be better off sticking to a tried and tested OS (like XP).

I'll no doubt move over to Vista at some point, but not until I'm 100% sure that all my development tools, programs and hardware are going to work as flawlessly in Vista as they do in XP. I want an easy life and for me, Vista doesn't offer any extras features over XP that I would find that useful.